Ithaca is already a rich city ‹ there's enough money in Ithaca today to
enable EVERYONE to work a few hours creatively daily and then to relax
with family and friends and enjoy top quality healthy food prepared by
some of the finest cooks on earth, to enjoy clean low-cost warm
housing, clean and safe transport, high quality handcrafted clothes and
household goods, to enjoy creating and playing together, growing up and
growing old in a supportive community where everyone is valuable, all
in the midst of one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth.

And to do this while replenishing rather than depleting
the integrity of the planet.

Our abundant wealth has not yet been translated into
community well-being because local money and economic development have
been traditionally controlled by people whose purposes are profit
gained with scant regard for damage done to their fellow citizens or to
nature.

I'm referring not ONLY to the dull and distant elites
which control commercial banking, venture capital, real estate, major
local corporations, or to government and its notorious bureaucracies.
I'm referring to we general public as well, who have followed bad
leadership in order to indulge an American Way of Life which has itself
become anti-American by destroying the natural resources upon which all
business depends.

Rather than apply our city's great wealth to making life
healthier and easier, local money is instead poured down the drain,
lost as food bills to agribusiness, lost as purchases from chain
stores, lost as energy payments to NYSEG, lost as transport
payments to auto manufacturers, oil companies
and auto insurance companies, lost as rent payments to absentee
landlords, lost as local tourist dollars to hotel chains, lost as
medical payments to drug companies and insurance companies, lost by
destruction of agricultural land for suburbanization, lost in pumping
clean water across town for flushing wastes, lost as tax payments to
state and federal agencies which do more harm than good, and discarded
into landfills.

Our wealth can instead be redirected, through personal
and community decisions. On a personal level, each of us can to
different degrees:

which establishes business incubators and retail
showcase for prototypes and product lines of locally-manufactured goods
such as shoes, clothes, soaps, pastas and other foods, cargo bicycles
and other practical tools,

which changes City tax collection to raise rents on
vacant Commons properties while lowering taxes on housing and
commercial properties which have been insulated, while providing local
tax credits for solar, wind and agricultural development,

which changes City building code to encourage
compost toilets and solar greenhouses,

which collect a local option penny-per-gallon
tax at the pump for transit, trollies and bike
lanes,

which decentralizes and de-bureaucratizes public education, both
to teach creative ecological citizenship, to reduce student commuting,
and to reduce the school tax burden,

which expands local
ownership of Cornell, to spread expertise in these directions.

This is a quick introduction to grassroots
ecological economics. It contrasts with top-down conventional
business planning, and opens an arena of infinite possibilities.

Here's Where Wealth Comes From

Regions make themselves rich and powerful primarily
by recycling
their wealth, to magnify it. That means retaining talents, skills, and
money of local people in the community as much as possible, connecting
the community to take care of itself to the maximum extent practical.
Here are some of the ways this is done:

Barter Posts are storefronts which enable public to
trade without cash.

Business Incubators are buildings
containing equipment shared by small new businesses, to reduce start-up
costs.

Buy-Local Campaigns promote social
and economic benefits of shopping for locally-produced goods, at
locally-owned stores.

Co-Housing provides shared
community spaces for child care, gardens, cooking, recreation, to make
life friendlier and easier.

Smart Growth is land use planning
restrains sprawl and relies on regional business rather than chains.
Government invents new rules to facilitate this
shift. Corporations are evaluated for their commitment to the
environment and fair pay.